That is a nasty looking cut, but good to hear your doing relatively well. And honestly, you're probably going to be surprised how well that thing heals. I'm not saying it won't be noticeable, but as long as you listen to the doctors and don't do anything to strain yourself enough to pop those staples loose, you will heal over good. Keep truckin' through it man.

Okay, so more of an update now that I am a little bit more coherent (don't know how long that will last, so I'll hurry).

The urologist (who has a fond habit of touching my ***** and balls any chance he gets) took the following steps for surgery.

1) I received an epidural of fentanyl (narcotic similar to morphine) high in my spine. They stuck a huge needle in my spine and gave my spinal cord a consistent dose of drugs--this is to numb my sense from my upper chest all the way down to my hips at least. In this case it went all the way down to my ankles. This was great, but it also meant I got to have a catheter in my bladder for the entire weekend since I didn't have the peeing sensation during this time.

2) The doctor made the large slice between two of my ribs as you can see in the picture (between one floating rib and one rib that is attached by cartilage). In order to actually get to the kidney, the urologist actually split apart my two ribs ribs so that he could twist the kidney towards him and get to the tumor. In doing so, he had to cut through three separate layers of muscles on the rib cage and abdominal muscles.

3) The doctor then cut the tumor away from the kidney tissue and took a large portion of the soft kidney tissue with it, ensuring that he removed all the affected tissue. In order to do this, the doctor had to take out one of the major blood supplying arteries from the kidney because the artery traveled right over the tumor itself. The doctor then sewed the ribs together and used the staples to close up the open wound.

So I have ab and rib muscles that need to heal, loose ribs that need to reconnect and of course the kidney that needs to heal.

All in all, the process is supposed to take a good month or more for me to get back to my daily activities. The biggest source of pain right now is the torn/stretched muscles around my ribs/abs that are trying to heal. Because of these torn muscles, they have me on Val*ium to relax the muscles and prevent pain from that area. Then they also have me on oxycodone to improve my tolerance to deal with the the other sources of pain.

As of right now, I am not allowed to carry anything over 5 pounds or pee standing up. I'm pretty much bed-ridden for now, but at least I am finally home. And now I am constantly dozing in and out of sleep from all the drugs. It's nice. I finally get to relax and get a good amount of sleep.

It feels so good to be at home without the nurses (most of them incompetent) coming in every 4 hours to bug me as I'm in a narcotic induced slumber. I have a few updates coming up, specifically about the epidural they gave me for pain control, the staple removal and the results of the pathology.

The epidural:

This is one of the things I was most nervous about going into the surgery. For those who don't know, this is where they stick a huge needle in your back and administer narcotic drugs directly into your spinal cord. The most common use for this is in pregnancy and in that instance, the drug is generally administered just once with the needle. In my case, however, the doctor was aiming for a numb torso for the entire weekend, so they actually slipped a catheter in my spine with a consistent drip of narcotics directly to the central nervous system.

I will tell you I barely felt a thing when they first put it in me and the drugs worked like a charm. They gave me a constant drip but they also gave me a button to push when I needed a little extra pain killing strength. It was amazing. And this is what it looked like.

Yes, that is blood draining from my spine along the catheter, but the thing worked so well. My biggest complaint for the weekend was that the vast amount of tape on my back coupled with a nerve-dead midsection made it nearly impossible to shift in bed. Secondly, because my entire torso was nerve-dead, I had to have a catheter in my bladder--one that rarely drained properly. It was a constant irritation trying to relieve my bladder. And then you had nurses lifting the bladder bag above my waist, draining 2 pints instantaneously BACK UP MY **** and into my bladder, all full of bubbles. I'll tell you.... that felt good...

Back to my back, here are a couple pics of my back after the tape was removed.

sorry for bringing up negative news regarding cancer, but my roommate from last year (diagnosed with liver cancer last january) has pretty much exhausted all of his options and the cancer has spread to his pancreas. the last i heard he was like the 20th person in the entire world to attempt this new type of medicine as a last ditch effort. and as much as i hate to say it, he did it to himself with his prescription drug addiction but that doesnt change the fact that the poor kid will pass away way too young. the whole situation has further reminded me how precious life is.

again, NIP, im real happy for you man. good luck with your recovery

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